Readings for Week #5

Why should I make my web site more accessible? How can I make my web site more accessible?
How do users actually view your website?

Readings on Usability and Accessibility

1. CNN Article on Web Accessibility
2. "How we really use the Web," a chapter from Steve Krug's wonderful book, Don't Make Me Think!
3. Jakob Nielsen's "Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003" and "Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines"

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

1. The Wave - http://wave.webaim.org/
2. Cynthia Says Report - http://www.cynthiasays.com/
3. Why 'Bobby Approved' is not Enough - http://www.evolt.org/article/Why_Bobby_Approved_is_not_Enough/4090/9278/
4. For IE/Windows only - The web Accessibility Toolbar -
   http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar/
   

The 10-Second Usability test

I often refer to this disabling of CSS as the "10-second usability test." This is most definitely not a scientific method for determining the true usability of a site, but by taking away the design, you'll find it easier to get a handle on how the core of this page is going to be presented to the world.

If the browser or device happens to NOT support CSS, the page's design goes away, but the content and functionality remains. Think: phones, PDA's hand-held computers, small-screened devices, screen-reading software, and text-only browsers. Although some of these may support the user of style sheets in some capacity, many do not.

The Dig Dug Test

A quick integrity test of a designs can be easily achieved by bumping up and down the text size using the browser's controls to see the the page reacts.

Lynx testing http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html

This service allows web authors to see what their pages will look like (sort of) when viewed with Lynx, a text-mode web browser.

FireBug

Fire bug http://getfirebug.com is a browser extension for Firefox that provides an interface designer a magnifying glass into the HTML, CSS and JavaScript of any page on the Web.

Week #4 - (CLICK GRAPH) Quiz summary/Stats

Quiz on Monday March 31, 2008 - Grades were very good
as you can tell from the staticst below.

Readings for week #4 RIT409

Group Assignments, and Starting to work on your Design Document

Design Document (assignment description posted in mycourses)- Competitive Analysis

-Shows the differences between the site you're working on and comparable sites.

-Screen shots
(rate completion with numbers and text description)

-These analysis are used for the design team and its clients to determine what customers are used to, and the components such as interface design and features offered.

-The competitive framework puts two websites side by side so that similarities and differences can be seen between the two.

-Competitive Analysis can also be used to compare many different sites. While comparing two sites for navigation and design, you can compare your site to totally different sites for shopping cart and checkout functionality.

-When presenting a competitive analysis it is best to list the conclusions early in the document or you may lose the attention of the group members and stakeholders.

Quiz will be Monday Week #4 All the readsings posted in the blog and book 1-6

Quiz Review will be topics Chapters 1-6 (focus on 6) Forms in HTML
Minor notes about chapter 5, my book notes on chapter 5 related to
creating the mailform.html I did use a table for the question in my mailform.htm

Sample of one html file with 3 external CSS files for Wednesday's lecture
http://people.rit.edu/~jrhicsa/409/03outline.html

Readings for Week #3 RIT409

CSS position Absolute http://jimhabermas.com/rit741/06outline.htm

CSS postion Relative http://jimhabermas.com/rit741/08outline.htm

Tutorial: CSS positioning http://www.elated.com/articles/css-positioning/

http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/12/07/relatively-absolute
Relatively Absolute @ The Autistic Cuckoo - a very clear explanation of the difference between relative and absolute positioning, as well as the default (static) positioning and use of float properties.


Link, check yours and other classmates http://people.rit.edu/~jrhicsa/409/spring2008.php

Today's Topic: CSS Positioning and JavaScript function calls.

The table-based approach to layout that you learned in 320/741 (or on your own) was cutting edge back when David Siegel pioneered it back in 1997. But browsers have come a long way since then, and markup has evolved to match that.

Using tables for layout has two major problems. The first is that it ties together content and presentation, which are two components that are best left separate. The second is that it results in bloated, slow-loading code.

We'll discuss the importance of separating content and presentation. You will be required to create an in class exercise with pictures (thumbnails) that open up to a new page. Use CSS to control the placement of your pictures.

For Week #3 please Chapter 6 Forms - Webmaster in a Nutshell

Readings on Visual Design

* Boxes & Arrows: Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization
* Web Page Design for Designers: Taming the Electronic Page

Useful color tools:

* Man In Blue: Technicolor Tool
* Hex Color Chart: Visibone
* Color picker

CSS Quick time movies
* http://jimhabermas.com/rit741/movies/
class_selectors.mov
id_selectors.mov
colors.mov

Readings Week 2 For RIT 409

Week #1 requested that you read the first two chapters of your text.
Some of the key points that I noted down from the reading that chapter included

Webmaster in a Nutshell Chapter One

-A Web Browser works by connecting over the Internet to remote machines, requesting specific documents, and then formatting the documents they receive for viewing on the local machine. (Examples of browsers: Netscape, Mozilla, Internet Explorer)

-The format for a URL(Uniform Resource Locators) is http://host/path and scheme://host/path/extra-path-info?query-info

-The top web document formats are HTML(Hypertext Markup Language), CSS(Cascading Style Sheet), or XML(Extensible Markup Language)

- A Webmaster is a person who works on the content end of the web. This title can then be divided between four different groups:

-Content Provider: Work on the data itself creating or editing HTML documents, incorporating images and forms, and maintaining the links.

-Designers: Create the images and also define the "look" of the site.

-Programmers: Write CGI, Java, JavaScript, and other programs to incorporate the website.

-Administrators: Manage the server, establishing new content development areas, writing new scripts, and maintaining security of sensitive documents and of the general site

This weeks readings are going to be including

Webmaster in a Nutshell Chapter Two

Some of my notes that I highlighted while reading chapter 2 included the following:

-An HTML document consists of text, which comprises the context of the document, and tags, which define the structure and appearance of the document.

Event Handlers: Script that reacts to a certain action such as a mouse cursor rolling over something, clicking on a link, leaving a page, etc.

-HTML can be used to invoke JavaScript functions to use specific even handlers.

This week's in class exercises is going to involve setting up your index page and your external master css for your course and introducing events that trigger JavaScript functions.

I have a preference to XHTML however, there are a lot of debates and discussions about XHTML vs HTML. Here are some selected readings on the topic for those who are interested in the pros and cons of each.

* HTML vs. XHTML on standards compliant websites (Roger Johansson, 19 June 2006)
* HTML or XHTML? (Robert Nyman, 2 November 2005)

CSS - Links and Ebook ( look in your My Courses)

Variety of CSS positioning and layout guides and templates
* CSS Layouts from Code-Sucks.com
* http://del.icio.us/mamamusings/css/